Phil,

Big bummer. I realize there's little you can do now, but I thought I would relate my own experience with Ergon grips.

I used to use the Ergon Performance Grip (the wing-shaped one) on all of my bikes. In Fall 2007, I did a 350-mile road tour over two days and came home with severe numbness in my fingers. It didn't go away for months. I thought I had done permanent nerve damage. Shortly after that, I switched to the Ergon Enduro grip. I used those in my 24-day run down the GDMBR and had no problems at all. Seriously, nothing. Came home with normal feeling in all of my fingers. I didn't even use bar ends, and although I had aero bars, I rarely used them. I didn't even do anything special with the grips or test them in different positions so they were just right. I just slid them on and they worked for me.

Still, I think grips are a highly personal thing. I just wanted to point out that those wing-shaped grips don't work for everyone. I think they can be detrimental to some who don't even realize it.

IMO the divide is a qualifier for ctr or azt 750.

In full agreement with this one. My first multiday race was the Iditarod - although quite a bit shorter than the Tour Divde, and very, very different, still in many ways much harder.

This is the strongest argument against requiring qualifying "races." The Iditarod Dog Sled Race qualifiers are much like the long race, only shorter. In the case of the existing multiday mountain bike races in North America, there isn't a single one that is all that much like another. So none of them really prepare one for the others.

But there is something to be said about having some multiday experience - RAAM, week-long tour in Australia, anything. It's certainly an advantage over coming into Divide racing almost completely cold save for a few weekend overnight training rides. But as a requirement? Yeah, difficult to establish, impossible to enforce.

Either way, you had 48 riders this year and now there's a big popular movie out about the Tour Divide. Good luck finding a sustainable way to accomodate the masses! :-)

Based on the emotional exhaustion I experienced last year after Pete's accident, I can only imagine how difficult this year must have been for everyone. But I do empathize.

Regarding a participation cut-off, I think it's a good idea in terms of both volunteer organization and avoidance of permitting issues. Even as a "non-race," TD is bound to run into bureaucratic difficulties eventually. I guess what you'll have to decide is whether it will happen on a first-come, first-served basis, or whether you'll require "qualifiers" such as prior multiday races or extended off-road bikepacking experience. Another tough line to draw! But if you are looking to enhance the "quality" of a field, qualifiers are probably the right direction to go.

Good luck with it all, and the recovery.

Thank you, Matt! By the way, congrats on yet another inspiring ride. It still astounds me that you're already thinking about 2011. :-)

wow! in contrast, my total on-race-clock tally, including one motel room was just under $500.00

i guess it goes to show that, by design, one can't just go out and throw a bunch of money at TD and be guaranteed a win.

No, but money can make life mighty enjoyable for the Divide comfort "fast tourist." :-) My 2009 race expenses were also over $2,000, including travel to Banff and extraction from Antelope Wells, food, hotels, and $500 worth of repairs in Steamboat Springs. To say nothing of a month of unemployment. (In my case, three months, but two of those were vacation - er, training - months.

That aside, I actually signed on because I was looking for contact info for Lexi Blumenthal. Does anyone know how to reach her?

I don't want to detract from Matt Lee's incredible accomplishment in the Tour Divide, nor minimize the difficulties and tragedy in this year's race, but a friend sent me this and it made me smile. It was just too good not to share.

From Antelope Wells, the "Thousand-Yard Stare" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand-yard_stare

And advice for those of you considering the route at either tour or race pace...  New Mexico is getting a bad rap this year.  It was our favorite state.  Brazos Ridge around the Cruces Basin Wilderness is beautiful.  Polvedera Mesa, which 2010 cyclists miss due to wildfire, is beautiful.  And the standard route (not the approved paved alternate) between Cuba and Grants is terrific.  The stretch through the Gila is lovely.  The road quality in New Mexico is not up to Colorado standards, but it's certainly ridable, and the scenery is great.  The bad drivers (not unlikely to include DUI) and dog problems reported this year are not an issue between Abiquiu and Grants via the mapped route. 

This comment made me smile, just because my experiences would lead me to give the exact opposite advice - Don't Underestimate New Mexico. For me, it was a hard, hard slap in the face, especially after 2,000 miles. Rain every day, significant mud-pushing every day, a steady stream of vicious dogs, and a moderate case of hypothermia (beyond shivering, into sleepy phase) going through the Gila in July. And I saw a huge number "bad drivers" on the route from Abiquiu to Cuba, in the form of stuck cars and half-rolled cars and drugged-out hippies along the many miles of Rainbow Gathering festivities. And then the mud ... the MUD! I still have nightmares.

But, yeah, I'll admit it New Mexico was quite beautiful, and the Gila smelled lovely when drenched in rain.

It just goes to show that everyone has a significantly different experience on the route, and that's really the beauty of it.

Aaron Teasdale's Tour Divide photo gallery just went live this morning. Some fun pictures in there, along with a tribute to Dave Blumenthal.

http://www.adventurecycling.org/gdrgallery2010

It's true humans have been shown to survive amazing windchill extremes. Just look at the guys who made the first successful ascent of Denali in the winter. The bivied for several days in a tiny snow cave during temperatures of -50 to -60 with wind speeds of 100 mph, wrapped in little more than half-frozen down sleeping bags and 60s mountaineering gear (their bivy sack, an old parachute, blew away.) They all survived with moderate frostbite on their fingers and toes, but they survived. Art wrote a great book called Minus 148. Definitely worth a read or seven.

John planned to start June 18 but work conflicts forced him to cancel his plans at the very last minute. He is now weighing weather data and so forth for a possible ITT in August or September, but it's still uncertain as to whether he can get the time off work to do it. So he may or may not ride the GDMBR this year, but I think he was planning on carrying a tracker if he does.

I just picked up a copy at the Ski Stop in Banff and watched it with my friends. It was very enjoyable. The filmmakers captured some great landscape shots as well as powerful emotional moments, and did a good job of summing up the sweeping experience of the race in an 80-minute time span.

I did think the filmmakers injected a bit too much of themselves in their own movie. Some of the clips were humorous, but I don't think they added much to the film itself, and those valuable minutes could have been used to show more of the end of the race; the whole last 20 minutes felt quite rushed. It is pretty funny they missed the beginning of the race. I mean, yeah, construction catches everyone unaware, but you think they could have planned a little better than that. I know I would have wanted to show up hours early if not the day before to catch and interview as many of the starters as possible. In my opinion, that alone left a hole in the film. Viewers didn't really get a chance to "meet" many of the racers before they launched into the race itself, and in doing so I think missed an opportunity to highlight the larger picture as well as the individual stories of the racers they chose to follow.

On a personal level, it was definitley fun to see and recognize the locations of scenes before they were announced. ("Oh yeah, there's Red Meadow Pass.") The cinematography was gorgeous, and the music was good as well. If I were a reviewer, I would give it four stars. Definitely worth checking out.

Just catching up on the happenings in the 2010 Tour Divide. I haven't had a chance to follow the action since Day 1, so I only was able to quickly skim the forum/leaderboard, but it looks like 2010 is shaping up to be every bit the beast of '09, at least in terms of snow and rain in Southern Montana (the roads on either side of Lima are gruesome when wet.)

I for one am bummed that three women had to call it quits. They all had strong credentials and it looked to be the makings of an ultra-competitive and exciting race on the female side. Cricket can hold her own, though. That woman is as tough as nails. In 2009, she and I both spent Tuesday night in Lincoln, having both been seduced by tasty-sounding entrees and restaurant marquees and calling it a day earlier than we intended. So far she's keeping the pace this year, and certainly has the ability to kick it up a notch.

I am in Whitehorse right now, on my way down the Al-Can to make a move to Montana. Along the way, I'm hoping to drop into Banff on Friday morning to see my friend John Nobile start his ITT of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. For newbies on this board, John's the current record holder of the border-to-border route, which was (and maybe still is?) raced as the Great Divide Race. I think his record is 15 days and change, set in 2008. He's going after Matt Lee's Banff-to-border (Tour Divide) record, so it may add an interesting twist to the 2010 race, as John will be marking off his splits only one week behind Matt and company. I will post pictures up here if I make it to the Spray River Trailhead in time.

Good luck to all the racers!


- Jill Homer

I've often wondered what the foot vs. bike spread would be on these tough singletrack endurance races. There is a law of diminishing turns when it comes to bikes and trail conditions (as evidenced in the 350-mile Iditarod/Ididabike race, where the bike record is only about 25 percent faster than the foot record.) Karl Meltzer averaged something like 60 miles a day on the Appalachian Trail, in an effort that took weeks and didn't even break the record. In a shorter trail race, forgoing sleep, even 90-100 miles a day doesn't seem like a complete stretch for a talented ultrarunner (Because any 100-mile stretch of the AZT is still less strenuous than most western 100-mile trail races, although the racer would have to carry their own gear in the AZT.) Does anyone know what the foot record is on the Arizona Trail or the Colorado Trail? It seems like there must be one.

Anyhow, it would be cool to see more multiday trail running races out there. AZT would be a great candidate. And congrats to this year's participants and finishers! I wasn't around to track this race but from what I've read here, it seems like an excitng one!

For what it's worth, one of my coldest days on the entire Divide last year was between Beaverhead Work Station on Silver City, N.M. It was July 5. It rained all day and a had to walk a good lot of the mud. By the time I finally hit the pavement into Silver City, my hands and feet were completely numb and I was shivering so uncontrollably that I had a tough time steering in a straight line. It was what I call "Juneau cold."

So in my humble opinion, there is no southern terminus of the cold, just as there's no northern barrier for heat. I'd carry warm/rain gear the entire way.

I carried my bear spray 2,700 miles and the closest I came to firing it off was at those damn dogs in Vallecitos. Ha ha!

In my opinion, bears are a concern but not necessarily a "danger" on the Divide. They're not urban bears, who have been habituated to human interaction, they're wilderness bears. By a large percentage they're more wary of you than you are of them. I saw at least 10 bears during the Divide- seven blackies and three grizzlies, and they all turned tail and ran fast in the other direction as soon as they saw me.

Maybe I've lived in Alaska too long - I see bears or signs of bears on nearly every hike I do during the summer, and I've never had anything close to a problem. But I believe bearanoia is a vastly overstated fear - sort of like being fearful of water because of man-eating sharks, knowing the the chances of being attacked by one are infinitesimally small. To me, the biggest dangers on the Divide are fatigue, lack of judgement, and of course - lightning. (I guess we all have our irrational fears.)

There's no such thing as bad weather just bad (wrong) clothes.

I'm a firm believer in bad weather. Have you ever heard of this thing called mud? ;-)

I did stay with Leslie. The cruiser, "Alice," even has studded tires on it for winter travel. No sightings of Crazy Larry, but I heard plenty of stories. On New Year's Eve, my friends spotted Crazy Larry laboring up the Sulphur Mountain trail with a gigantic backpack including climbing rope and winter camping gear. In his hands, he was holding two full-sized, battery-powered spotlights. He told my friends that the police and fire departments of Banff had entrusted him with the duty of signaling the coming of midnight from the top of the mountain so they knew it was time to set off the fireworks. But he was carrying so much stuff and moving so slow that he had no chance of making it to the peak by midnight, so he reluctantly handed over his spotlights with very specific instructions on the code used to signal the fireworks "long, long, short, short." And my friends actually carried those lights all the way to the top and returned them to Crazy Larry when he arrived long after the fireworks had ended.

Good people, those Canadians.

So I just returned from a ski vacation in Banff. I thought I'd share this picture for those getting psyched up for the summer tour. I took it from the top of Sulphur Mountain. Mount Rundle is on the left and the Spray River runs down the valley on the right. The Spray River trail runs right beside it - that's the beginning of the GDMBR.

I sure hope they didn't get rid of the singletrack!  So Epic, so smooth, such great flow...

Ha ha ha!

Question for the TD vets.  When is the earliest a south to north ride is possible? 

I know of a guy who started in late-May 2008 and ran into impassable snow in the higher passes north of Cuba, N.M.